So what sort of background do people here have in chess and martial arts? What are everybody's thoughts about the connection between chess and martial arts?

I trained Judo for many years as a kid, and played some chess as well - although I took to Judo much more naturally and had much more success with it. Still, I gave them both up as an adolescent... and now bitterly regret having done so!

I returned to chess and martial arts again a couple of years ago, training Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Muay Thai and MMA, and playing a lot of chess against a couple of friends who started playing seriously around the same time as me.

A big inspiration was Raymond Keene & Michael Gelb's Samurai Chess - an awesome book, especially for relative beginners to chess, and absolutely crucial reading for martial artists of both the mind and body! As far as I am aware it is the only book that seriously addresses the connection between chess ("the martial art of the mind") and the traditional asian martial arts... (PLEASE if anybody knows of any other books coming from this perspective let me know!)...

My general feeling is that training the mind for combat and training the body for combat are inseperable realities. Many top-flight fighters are chess players, and you only need glance through the history of the chess world championship to find numerous examples of fit, well-trained individuals outplaying and of course outlasting less well conditioned competitors - prime examples are Kasparov vs Karpov 1984 and Euwe vs Alekhine 1935.

I'm really interested to hear from other people on this subject.

Chess Samurai Group